Paul McCartney Releases New Single, ‘Days We Left Behind,’ to Be Followed by First Album in Nearly Six Years, ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’

After five years of reports about an album in progress, Paul McCartney released a new single, “Days We Left Behind,” Thursday morning. The single, a love letter to Liverpool, arrived concurrent with the official news that the album he has been working on with producer Andrew Watt is indeed on the way. “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” is due out May 29.

The forthcoming set will be McCartney’s first new album since his pandemic-bred, self-produced “McCartney III” came out in December 2020.

“Days We Left Behind” got its premiere airing on the BBC’s Radio Merseyside at 2:50 p.m. U.K. time (10:45 a.m. ET), followed by a clip of McCartney talking about the song.

The new album is helmed by one of the best-known producers of the modern era, Watt, who has said that he got a call to begin working with McCartney soon after he won the Grammy for producer of the year in 2021. Watt has specialized in working on veteran rockers’ projects in recent years, including the Rolling Stones’ “Hackney Diamonds,” Ozzy Osbourne’s “Ordinary Man” and “Patient Number 9” and Elton John’s album with Brandi Carlile, “Who Believes in Angels?” Watt also produced Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem” and has worked on albums by Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Pearl Jam and Justin Bieber.

McCartney’s album looks to be rich with nostalgic, autobiographical imagery. The actual Dungeon Lane is a very narrow road in Speke, a suburb of Liverpool, adjacent to what is now Liverpool John Lennon Airport. The street is within a few minutes’ walking distance of the childhood homes of both McCartney and fellow Beatle George Harrison.

The title of “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” had already come to light earlier in the week, first via a teaser campaign in which posters with a logo bearing those words were plastered around Liverpool. McCartney’s brother, Michael McGear McCartney, confirmed that the posters were related to his brother’s forthcoming album with a social media post saying the logo was designed by his son: “Josh saw this teaser for r kids new album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’ in Liverpool yestas. It was familiar to him as he had designed the Dungeon Lane(Speke) artwork for his Uncle.”

Then McCartney’s account texted fans with a link to a Google Maps page, which showed an image of a boy running across the actual Dungeon Lane holding a sign with the album logo.

The nostalgic theme was further foreshadowed when McCartney took to his social media Wednesday to post a black-and-white photo of himself believed to be from the late ’50s.

Further clues seemed to come with McCartney using emojis of birds in his recent media. The beach near Dungeon Lane is said to have been a popular birdwatching area, and in the book “Many Years Now,” the singer described having a guide to birds he carried around as a boy.

McCartney had previously used the phrase “the boys of Dungeon Lane” in a 1991 demo for a song titled “In Liverpool.” Lyrics for the officially unreleased song included the lines “Walking with the boys of Dungeon Lane / Aimlessly towards the cast iron shore.” (The phrase “cast iron shore,” referring to a coastal area in Liverpool, also appeared in the John Lennon-written Beatles song “Glass Onion.”)

The new single and album news came the day before McCartney is set to do a two-night stand at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, his first live dates since wrapping up a 2025 arena tour in November. No other concert plans have yet been announced for 2026.

Prospective ticket buyers who had pre-registered for McCartney’s two concerts at the 1200-capacity Fonda were informed by Ticketmaster on Wednesday as to whether they had been selected for the chance to go, with the vast majority, naturally, coming away empty-handed. The disparity between supply and demand for these shows was similar to when McCartney played three nights at New York’s 575-capacity Bowery Ballroom in February 2025.